NYR469 said:
imo the league has to give the players something major if they want the 04-05 contracts to expire and be let off the hook of $1b worth of salaries...
when yashin held out the league took him to court and argued that contracts were based on seasons NOT calender years and the court agreed forcing yashin to return to ottawa for 1 year, setting a legal precedence. now that the opposite benefits the league they are claiming that the contracts are based on calender dates, not seasons.
if the nhlpa takes the league to court over it, it will take any judge in the US about 15 minutes to rule in favor of the nhlpa because not only is their a legal precedence but that precedence was set based on what the nhl wanted, so they can't claim that it isn't fair now. it would be the ultimate slamdunk case...
i fully expect them to take care of these during negotations and one way or another the nhlpa will agree to not go to court over this, but the league is going to have to give them something for it. they can't expect to get everything they want and then have the nhlpa to rollover on this too (thats a LOT of $$)...
of course while they can make it part of the deal that the nhlpa agrees to not challenge this in court, neither the league nor nhlpa has any control over agents so a group like IMG could take the league to court on behalf of their clients. some might think that agents would rather have guys be free agents, but if this will cost them commission on the final year of those contracts that might be enough $$ for them to fight it...bottom line things will only get uglier lol
The Yashin arbitration decision has little to do with this question and offers no precedent.
1. It was an arbiter's (Lawrence Holden's) decision made under the dispute resolution mechanisms of the last CBA and not a court case. The only court case just upheld that arbitration according to the CBA was the correct venue and did not rule at all on the merits of the case. There is no legal precedent established by Yashin's non case, except possibly in other NHL arbitration cases.
2. The point that Holden ruled on was very narrow. He made no global rulings on whether contracts are for calendar years of playing years. All he did was rely on an obscure ruling made during the Zeigler/Stein era (which became part of the body of league rules and bylaws which accompany the CBA) which specifically dealt with players holding out and full performance of contracts. The previous rulings on which Holden's decision were based were pretty one sided in terms of performance - explicitly calling out the case of a holdout player.
As I said before, there is no legal precedent from Yashin and certainly no "Slam Dunk Case".
IMG could take this to court, but they would almoset certainly lose. Terms negotiated under a CBA are pretty much immune to challenge under anti-trust laws. So whatever the NHL and PA agree to in terms of contract aging (and unsigned draftees and RFAs and ...) is what will happen and it is very unlikely that a court would say otherwise - here there definitely is legal precedent (Clarett v NFL, Wood v NBA, and more).
